This project, entitled HyperReport, is a computer based program that helps students by guiding them through the HC development process. With it, students learn to create a storyboard, design a project map, and create a hypercompositon stack using HyperStudio. They learn to organize their media and use an established sequence for incorporating graphic, sound, text, and animation elements to their stacks.

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EthnoQuest, an interactive multimedia CD-ROM simulating a visit to a fictional village named Amopan, was conceived as an adjunct to college-level classroom instruction in introductory anthropology courses. Since these classes typically involve large numbers of students, the logistics on conducting actual fieldwork pose serious problems for instructors and students alike. The conception of an engaging, interactive, accessible learning tool that incorporates appropriate pedagogical principles has found its ultimate expression in EthnoQuest.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration maintains a challenging schedule of planned and on-going space exploration missions that extend to the outer reaches of our galaxy. New missions represent a huge investment, in terms of actual costs for equipment and support infrastructure, and personnel training. The success of a mission is critical considering both the monetary investment, and for manned missions, the lives which are put at risk. Tragedies involving Challenger, Columbia, Apollo 7, and the near tragedy of Apollo 13 exemplify that space exploration is a dangerous endeavor, posing extreme environmental conditions on both equipment and personnel. NASA, the National Science Foundation' and numerous independent researchers indicate that predictive simulations have the potential to decrease risk and increase efficiency and effectiveness in space exploration activity. Simulations provide the capability to conduct planning and rehearsal of missions, allowing risk reducing designs and techniques to be discovered and tested. Real-time simulations may improve the quality of the response in a real-time crisis situation. The US Army developed Layered Terrain Format (LTF) database is a uniquely architected database approach that provides high fidelity representation of terrain and specialized terrain query functions that are optimized to support real-time simulations. This dissertation investigates the question; can the unique LTF database architecture be applied to the general problem of celestial body representation? And if so, what benefits might it bring for mission planners and personnel executing the mission? Due to data limitations, this research investigates these questions through a lunar analog setting iv involving S band and Earth-bound communication signals as might be needed to conduct manned and/or robotic mission on the moon. The target terrain data set includes portions of the Black Point Lava Flow in Arizona which will be used for NASA's 2010 Desert RATS analog studies. Applied Research Associates Inc, the developer of the LTF product, generated Black Point databases and made limited modifications to the LTF Viewer tool, RAVEN, which is used for visualization of the database. Through the results attained during this research it is concluded that LTF product does provide a useful simulation capability which could be used by mission personnel both in pre-mission planning and during mission execution. Additionally, LTF is shown to have application an information system, allowing geospecific data of interest to the mission to be implemented within its layers. The Florida Space Research & Education Grant Program sponsored by FSGC, Space Florida and UCF provided a grant of $31,500 to perform this research.

Many systems in use today do not fulfill their expectations when operating, and are in a non-operating state much of the time due to maintenance. The accomplishment of maintenance often turns out to be costly and may significantly influence performance and the competitive position of a factory. In response to maintenance problems in the industrial environment, "Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)" is rapidly becoming the reliable, efficient, and cost-effective approach to maintaining the system to be operated at the full capacity with high productivity and low production cost. "Overall Equipment Effectiveness (DEE)" has been developed to measure the effectiveness of a given maintenance approach. It involves all of the operation and maintenance parameters required to measure the overall operating condition of the factory and its equipment. Measuring in terms of the DEE assists in identifying the production losses experienced in a factory, and aids in planning possible countermeasures to eliminate those losses. The concept of TPM and the steps involved in TPM implementation is introduced. A specific measure of TPM effectiveness, DEE, is defined, employed, and the results are analyzed. A computerized DEE model is developed to facilitate the measurement and evaluation process. The countermeasures necessary to eliminate the losses defined in TPM are also discussed. Application of GEE measurement and evaluation is illustrated through a case study assuming a hypothetical factory environment A cost-effectiveness analysis in terms of the total product cost and the resultant DEE value is also illustrated through the case study. The application of these methods for continuous factory improvement is the objective. / Ph. D.

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This developmental dissertation focuses on the creation of an interactive multimedia presentation for use in a public delivery setting. Interactive multimedia appears to have outstanding potential for information dissemination. However, this technology is not commonly used by organizations which lack resources or skills to support total in-house development, and do not have funds to contract outside development at commercial rates. This dissertation addresses these concerns in three ways: 1) It presents a comprehensive model, called ADOBE, to organize the steps of interactive multimedia design and implementation. 2) It outlines, in detail, the development and implementation of a fully functional interactive multimedia presentation, The Natural Resource Extravaganza, to demonstrate interactive multimedia development based on the ADOBE model. 3) It presents (a) design templates, supporting original but parallel development, and (b) program templates, supporting adaptive development through modification of program elements. A video tape demonstrating The Natural Resource Extravaganza, is available from the Reserved Materials section of the Virginia Tech Newman Library. The tape and information about the computer code also are available from NMSU Agricultural Information, Box 30003, Dept. 3AI, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003. The Natural Resource Extravaganza presentation, graphics, video tape, and program code are copyrighted by New Mexico State University. / Ed. D.

A common concern for people using computer databases is becoming "lost" within the complex hierarchy of entries. Most direct manipulation interface design guidelines suggest designers should include a feature for “undoing” user inputs (Smith and Mosier, 1986). In the case of a database, undo translates to backtracking support. The first purpose of this research was to confirm that computer-supported backtracking tools reduce navigation time over manual backtracking. The second purpose was to compare navigation times among a subset of backtracking tools. The third purpose was to determine if users prefer to use one or more backtracking tools significantly more than others. Four backtracking tools were developed by crossing two factors: History (history list vs no history list) and Level (component vs entry). History list indicates the user may view a chronological listing of nodes that have been viewed and directly select a destination node. No history list means the user must backtrack through each visited node with no shortcuts. Component indicates the backtracking tools operate only at the lowest level, or smallest definable node, of the tree-like database structure. Entry means that backtracking occurs at the higher parent node. Thus, multiple components make up an entry . In addition to the four computer backtracking tools, overall navigating and manual backtracking was done using a hierarchical Table of Contents. The tools were evaluated in an experimental, hierarchical, direct-manipulation database. Trials were conducted in the form of a multiple-choice information retrieval task. The independent variables included the backtracking tool (four-computer supported, one-manual) and the backtrack Task Length. The dependent measures included navigation time, the frequency with which the computer tool was used over manual backtracking (Table of Contents), and questionnaire responses. The results of this study provided some of the first solid support for the many guidelines that have been written recommending user recovery, or undo support. Backtracking with any of the four computer-supported tools resulted in a significantly smaller navigation time than manual backtracking using the Table of Contents. Subjects using either of the entry tools had consistent backtracking times across trials regardless of backtrack task length. When provided with a history list, subjects in the entry condition had significantly smaller navigation times than subjects in the component condition. Users did not show any differences between computer tools in rated efficiency, ease of use, or objective preference measures. / Master of Science

Much of the hypermedia literature instructs developers to "Use a map to prevent users from becoming lost." However, there is very little empirical evidence that maps are effective. In addition, no one has examined how to design the maps to make them most helpful to the users. This research evaluates both issues for information retrieval tasks with a fairly small hypermedia application (about 175 nodes). This study evaluates the overall effectiveness of maps by comparing the subjects' performance using hypermedia without a map to performance with one of four maps. Then, it reveals the relative effectiveness of the different types of maps by comparing the results of the subjects' performance with four variations of a map. In addition, this research evaluates (1) the effects of the experimental conditions on the subjects' mental models of the application and (2) the effects of the subjects' spatial abilities on their performance with hypermedia. The results reveal that there is generally no difference between the subjects' performance with a map and performance without a map. In addition, users who had to navigate using the links within the application rather than selecting nodes from the map (using a "passive" map) viewed more extra nodes, but spent less time on each node and completed the tasks in less time than those who could select nodes directly from the map (using an "active" map). However, many of the subjects using the passive map would have preferred to use an active map. Also, subjects who always had a map available to them (using a "present" map) performed as well as subjects who had to call up a map to use it (a "called" map). In addition, there is no difference in the accuracy of the subjects' mental models. All the subjects understood the application fairly well. A few of the spatial abilities test results are correlated with performance, and all of significant correlations indicate that higher spatial abilities leads to improved performance with hypermedia. It is believed that the lack of differences among the conditions is due to a number of factors, including the simplicity of the application the subjects used and the tasks they performed. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy